Mistletoe and brambles

A dank and murky weekend, when not actually wet.  Not a good couple of days for gardening (and anyway there were more urgent things to do indoors).  One key job had to be done, however.  I had acquired half-a-dozen mistletoe berries, and February is the time to 'sow' them.  The obvious place would have been the big apple tree, but mistletoe takes a good couple of years before there's anything to see, and there would have been a risk that I would have pruned off the relevant branches in the meantime.  So it was out with the stepladder, down to the bottom of the garden, and up into the hawthorn that overhangs the summerhouse.  A messy job - but it'll be interesting to see if any of them germinate!

While I was out there, and it wasn't actually raining at the time, I hacked at some of the brambles that have self-sown among the bigger shrubs.  It's a good time of year to see what's what in there, while most plants are leafless.  There were a few long arching branches that were tip-rooting in the undergrowth, so I was able to rip them out.  With any luck I'll be able to get some weedkiller on the stumps once they start sprouting in spring.  The robin was very pleased with my disturbing the ground; he sat and sang to me just overhead.

Still the same late winter flowers - snowdrops, aconites, cyclamen and the winter shrubs - but signs of spring if you look closely.  The osmanthus is showing buds, for example.

Since then, we've had a couple of cold nights, with a little snow - prettily outlining all the twigs.  Fortunately clear roads, so no travel problems.  Still murky and rather dank.

The birds have been a little more enthusiastic about food put out for them, though those appearing on the patio are still the usual suspects.  Over the weekend we had upwards of 50 crows sitting in the tops of the big trees around us, just below the cloud level - quite a sight - and the little party of 15 partridge trot in and out some evenings.

After apple pruning

The snow lasted until Friday evening, when heavy rain cleared some of it; more rain on Saturday night washed away much of the rest, although patches of snow stayed in the fields through the week, despite temperatures well above zero.  The meltwater has soaked everything thoroughly – for the first time that I can remember, there was a big puddle in the field across the road.  Normally rain just goes straight through our stony soil.  Yesterday was a lovely sunny, but cold, day; today is cloudy and thoroughly damp.

With the temperatures back to plus figures, I’ve felt able to do some pruning.  Last year I pruned the cooking apple tree hard and late (in March); it responded by throwing up lots of water shoots, which need dealing with this year, so this afternoon was spent up a stepladder with secateurs, loppers and the bowsaw.  I’ve become very fond of my loppers; can’t imagine how I managed without them!  Not only can I deal with bigger branches without resorting to the saw (which isn’t always easy to use in a crowded tree), but it enables me to reach all sorts of things that were beyond me before.  The very top of the tree is still a bit tricky – and there are a few branches that have been left until next weekend – but most of the job is done.  I do tend to get a bit carried away, so I’ve tried not to take too much wood out this time; there are still a few branches that I’ll want to remove next year, but I hope there will be rather more space and light in the tree this year.

You do get a different view of the garden from the top of a stepladder! 

Today's other job was sowing more sweet peas; those in the cold frame have partly germinated  / survived, but I need more.  Temperatures are still a bit low for them, but they won’t come to harm in the cold frame while they’re waiting for the mercury to rise.

The big snowdrops (Atkinsii and Elwesii) are mostly fully out; the doubles are just starting to open, while the small singles are only just showing white tips.  The winter aconites and some of the cyclamen coum are in bloom too.  The big hellebores have been in flower since well before Christmas, but the others are well in bud and will be out soon.  The winter honeysuckle seems to have woken up and now has quite a few flowers.  Despite the recent cold, a number of other plants are also waking up; the daffodils are well up, and the chaenomeles is in bud.  The honeysuckle next to it is coming into leaf; I must get on top of that before it takes over!

Last autumn I planted some garlic and some of last year’s onion sets that had totally failed to make any growth.  No sign now of any of them.  I’m hoping that they’re under the soil and getting on with things .... I’m more pleased with my trough of salad leaves, which as usual has come through the snows and bounced back with vigour.  They’re still too small to provide much in the way of salad, but they’ll be ready for spring.  I also repotted my mint in the autumn, and it has kept its leaves – again, not much for using, but coming along nicely, as is a chervil plant that I protected from the snow.

The last couple of days of the snows brought more birds to the patio – the mistle thrush and fieldfare continued to battle it out, and there were visits by the two marsh tits and the two nuthatches.  Since the snow – hardly a thing.  The Big Garden Birdwatch total was pitiful.  They’re all off pairing up and sorting out territory.  The robins have been singing lustily, and a song thrush was striking up the other morning (its mate, or a rival, was also around).  And one day we had 15 partridges, arriving one by one, pecking around for a while and then departing in their usual long line.  Apart from that, not much has been around.  I even removed the squirrel guard from the peanuts to see if that would attract them, but no.  

The squirrel itself must have been about (but not on the nuts); there are holes in the lawn and broken nut shells under the plum tree.  Mr Mole has extended his run by another few feet (I’ve tried to stamp the runs down), and there’s another mole run up by the raspberries.  Some digging required, I think (by me as well as him).

Who goes there?

Still cold, still snow (lots).  More fell on Tuesday night and the slight thaw in the afternoons hasn't made much difference. 

While the garden itself isn't very visible under all that white stuff, there has been plenty of opportunity to observe the wildlife.  Also where the wildlife has been, through the tracks left in the snow.  Now, here's a conundrum.  This morning there was a very distinctive track on the lawn - four 'steps' each consisting of three prints.  If I saw that on our skiing holiday, I would be in no doubt that it was a hare.  We have hares round here, and rabbits, but I haven't seen either in the garden for years.  I can't think what else would make that sort of print.  The thing is, there's no sign of where the track started, or where the animal went after reaching the path under the dining room window.  I can't see any other similar prints.  Some of the track seems to follow the same path as a track probably made by next door's cat; if the cat came after the hare, I suppose its prints might have obliterated some of the hare's.  But where did it go afterwards?

Another animal moving around the garden is Mr Mole.  The snow, of course, doesn't bother him at all.  He had created a big molehill down near the summerhouse, and followed it up by another, about ten feet away, which I watched being created.  One minute nothing was there, the next there was a pile of earth heaving up from under the snow, getting bigger by the minute.  Of course, once the snow melts he'll know all about it as the water will have to go somewhere - and I suppose he'll be heading for drier ground up near the house again.

The fieldfare

Birds continue to come for food.  I've been putting out old apples for the blackbird, but yesterday they were discovered by a fieldfare which has been feasting on them, when he's not fending off the blackbird (yesterday) and a mistle thrush (today).  The thrush won every time but doesn't have the confidence to spend long on the patio when I'm in sight, so the fieldfare keeps coming back.   Other visitors include two robins (at least tolerating each other's presence, so presumably paired up for the season), a pied wagtail which I haven't seen here for a couple of years, and a wren.  Plenty of tits also, including a great tit which has enjoyed a bath in a bowl of water I put out, and the marsh tit has a mate who was with him the other day.  The jay, sadly, hasn't been back.

Plantlife is mostly under the snow, including most of my pots, which are surrounded or covered by drifts.  That nearest pot (first picture, taken before the second fall of snow) has a heuchera and one of the 'Sour Grapes' penstemons in it - you can just see the foliage peeping out.  Fortunately there are other penstemon plants in the cold frame!  There is a little more colour indoors - some winter jasmine and hazel catkins, cut before the cold snap.  The catkins continue to develop after cutting, starting as little greyish things and turning into fat, long sausages with yellow pollen.

According to the forecast, there's rain coming in late tomorrow and over the weekend, with warmer temperatures.  But tonight the skies are clear, and the temperatures are to tumble even further.  Keep warm!

Cold sunset

Snow day

Returning from our New Year travels last year, we were met at the gate by our resident pheasant.  This year, returning from the same travels but arriving after dark, we were greeted by a tawny owl hooting nearby.  Welcome to another year in the garden!

Winter has finally set in.  The weather over Christmas and New Year was mostly wet (though the two big days themselves were both pleasant) and mild; since the start of the year it has been drier and gradually turning colder.  Snow forecast for the start of last week didn’t amount to anything much, although remarkably a gritter lorry came through the village on Sunday evening.  Yesterday the snow came in earnest, with a south-easterly blowing it about; outside the back door the flagstones are clear, but alongside the car there was a drift over a foot deep until I dug a path through it, and it’s 4-5 inches deep on the drive.  A stay-at-home day, and I haven’t ventured out today either; mostly only 4x4s are moving through the village.  (No photos; it's grey and cold out there.)

Until the snow covered everything, late winter plants were coming along nicely.  Three snowdrops (G. Atkinsii) in bloom down by the bottom fence, a few winter aconites near the pond and a single cyclamen coum bloom alongside them.  The winter honeysuckle had finally managed to put out a few blossoms, and viburnum ‘Dawn’ and the winter jasmine were also in flower.  Significantly, weed seedlings (now dealt with) were coming through on the drive and under the apple cordons.

The main thing happening alongside the apple cordons, though, is more serious.  When I mentioned the ivy in the wall last time, I hadn’t meant to tempt fate.  But just before Christmas we looked out one day and part of the wall had come down, on top of three of the cordons.  It has been bulging for a few months, but didn’t seem to be in imminent danger of collapse.   That part of the wall actually has little ivy on it, at least on our side, but it’s next to the neighbour’s big ash tree, and I suspect the tree’s movements have undermined it; it also appears to be the favoured place for small neighbours to make illicit crossings in search of misplaced footballs, which won’t have helped.  We managed to dig out the cordons, and stabilise the rubble sufficiently, but it will need rebuilding.  I see that, in the last few days, some more has come down into the neighbours’ garden, so we might get some progress when the weather improves.  It’ll be a difficult job, though; their garden is much lower than ours, and we have the cordons across it, so I’m not sure how we’re going to manage that!

Indoors, a pot of Paperwhite narcissi ‘Ziva’ planted up in early December (a half-price bargain) were in full bloom when we got back, providing lovely scent to help ease the bareness of the house once the Christmas greenery was taken down.  While away, we also acquired another orchid (£5 in Tesco – we like bargains) which is blooming happily, and last year’s £5 Tesco orchid (which bloomed until October) is in bud again.  The tender outdoor plants that are overwintering indoors are doing well too.  The blue succulent is growing away well (too well; I don’t have room for it if it gets much bigger!), and the brugmannsia is sprouting from the bottom.  This plant hasn’t had a very happy life with me; it has turned into a 4ft bare stem with a sad little tuft of leaves on top.  With new growth at the base of the plant, I have the option of cutting it down (and turning the top into a cutting?), which will have the added attraction of making it much easier to accommodate!  The cordyline/phormium is in the cold upstairs bathroom and seems to be making the best of it.

There hadn’t been much remarkable birdlife until this cold spell, other than a treecreeper seen on the big ash tree over Christmas.  Food left out when we went away was untouched; presumably it was too mild for the birds to bother.  Yesterday, in the snow, the usual birds came for food – blackbirds, robin, dunnock, sparrows, tits - but today we had a ‘first’ for our garden when a jay came to feed.  After digging a bit in the snow by the plum tree and investigating a few other corners, it finally plucked up the courage to come to the patio to feed.  Other birds kept to the far end of the garden, including the marsh tit.  What a pity the Big Garden Birdwatch is next weekend and not this!

The holly and the ivy

This is the season of evergreens - nothing else is doing much in the garden at the moment.  There are still a few flowers on the chrysanthemums, but they are sprawling on the ground mostly, and viburnum 'Dawn' and its evergreen relations are in flower - oh, and there's one single flower on the winter honeysuckle, at last.  At the front the winter jasmine is doing its thing.  Otherwise the interest is from the evergreens (and evergreys), and the red stems of the dogwood.  The Christmas greenery has started to make its way indoors; this week's photo offering is the decorated mantlepiece, using ivy (mostly) and a little holly, all from the garden.  The neighbours' efforts to eradicate the coloured-leaved ivy from the boundary wall means that there's less variegated stuff than usual, but enough to make a good contrast. (I don't blame the neighbours, by the way; ivy looks lovely but it does terrible things to old drystone walls.)

This weekend's work included weeding around the chrysanthemums, the aster and the helianthemum to allow me to plant the small red tulips (T. linifolia) that were the most recent bargain acquisition.  I hope I remember where I've put them.  I've also started to reclaim the path leading off the patio, where the rose has encroached on one side and a self-sown honeysuckle had taken root on the other.  The resulting digging was tidings of great joy to the robin, who took every opportunity to check for worms when I wasn't too close.  He's becoming quite trusting, and even a little cheeky - flying on to one of the pots near the window when he sees me and thinks I might bring out food.

I did put out quite a lot of food during last week, when we had several severe frosts; the robin was waiting most mornings when I opened the curtains.  The blackbirds, sparrows and starlings also came.  By the end of the week the weather had turned milder, with a little more rain and wind, though the weekend was mostly dry; this week has started clear and chilly, with sunny days, but rain on the way again.  Probably a wet Christmas rather than a white one.

Other wildlife hasn't been very visible.  The marsh tit was around at the weekend (and probably during the week too), and a nuthatch was whistling to itself (or maybe to another nuthatch, though I couldn't see one) as it looked for food in the trees on Sunday.  Mr Mole hasn't been doing much in the garden; he seems to be intermittently active down by the compost heaps at the moment, and as long as he stays down there that's fine by me.

Under cover

A drier week, but several frosty nights, so a decision had to be made about the more tender plants.  The blue-leaved succulent (echeveria?) that spent the summer in the big pot was potted on into something smaller some weeks ago, and put into the cold frame, but the frost prompted me to bring it indoors.  Until I get a greenhouse it'll have to overwinter indoors, so it's currently on the kitchen windowsill (taking up most of the space).  Today I removed the purple spiky thing (phormium? cordyline?) which has been forming a very effective backdrop in the pot by the patio doors, potted it up and brought it indoors too.  I've no idea how hardy it is, and it was in a very sheltered place, but it has grown well this year since I got it at the plant sale and I'd be sorry to lose it.  It has gone into the top bathroom.  While I was at it, I also removed the purple osteospermum from the same pot, potted that up too and put it in the cold frame; it spent last winter in there, so I hope it'll be ok this winter too.

The frost has seen off the last of the nerines, and the marigolds.  The only flowers now are the real winter ones - winter jasmine, viburnums and the hellebores under the dining room window.  Still nothing on the winter honeysuckle; the plant probably needs pruning as the wood is mostly quite old.  A cutting or two might be good insurance, unless I can find another layering where a branch has rooted into the ground.  A good sign on the viburnum that is dying back, though - it has produced a well-grown shoot from the base.

A few more bargain bulbs potted up today.  Some Super Parrot tulips (white with yellow-green backs), with a couple of cuttings of yellow ivy on top; the ivy came over the wall from next door, and since the neighbours have dug it out on their side I've tried to root a couple of pieces.  They seem ok so far.  Also a pot of paperwhite narcissi (Ziva), in the hope that they won't flower while we're away from home.  The third bargain hasn't gone in yet: red species tulips (linifolia), which will go around the aster, chrysanthemums and red helianthemum once I've finished weeding round them.  There's still time to plant them, as long as it isn't too frosty next weekend.

All the apples have gone from the tree, so the fieldfare and green woodpecker will have to move on elsewhere.  There are still some apples indoors, and the damaged ones go out on the patio for the blackbirds, who are becoming quite trusting.  Besides the robin, dunnocks and sparrows, a couple of chaffinches came down yesterday and a wren was about today.  We used to get flocks of finches, but not for a few years now; today there was a flock of what looked like finches up in the field maple next door, but I couldn't make out their markings.  It would be good to see more of them around.  There was a single goldfinch in the garden today, and the marsh tit was on the seed feeder - like the nuthatch, throwing seeds out until it found its favourite ones.  Must get better seed next time.

Splitting sedums

A drier and sunnier week, but the wind has turned to the north and we've had frosty nights - enough to freeze the pond and require scraping of the car windscreen.  There's still some water about, particularly when it rains but also just run-off from the fields; it's got to go somewhere, and back into the waterlogged soil isn't an option at the moment.  In the garden, the soil is a bit sticky but it never gets completely sodden.  The winter sunshine isn't enough to dry it out, but it's welcome when it comes.

The weekend's work was a mixture of clearing up, some cutting back, a little weeding - and doing a job I'd been keeping for the back end of the year, splitting the two 'Autumn Joy' sedums.  They hadn't been divided since they went in (a good many years ago), and were flagging. Now that their flowers are over, it's a good time to get at them.  The one by the summer house had all sorts of weeds in its roots - ground elder, nettles, buttercup and more - so badly needed sorting out.  Three offshoots have been planted out under the big ash tree, three in front of the honeysuckle and a few more potted up as spares or for the spring plant sale.

Sunday was a bumper bird-spotting day.  Over breakfast, in addition to the usual sparrows, robin, blackbirds and pigeons we had a pair of chaffinches, the fieldfare, a male bullfinch, a wren and a treecreeper.  The fieldfare was busy keeping the blackbirds off the remaining apples, and even chasing away a blue tit that got too close.  The green woodpecker is still about, and on Saturday we had a dozen partridges hiding in the garden to stay out of the way of the shoot.  Even more remarkably, yesterday's sunshine saw a dozen woodpigeons all together, quite amicably, enjoying the sun under the plum tree.  We seem to have plenty of robins this winter, which is nice (unless you're a territorially-minded robin); one of them was very appreciative of my digging up of the sedums, where the freshly turned soil provided a feast for him.